THE PRIZE DESIGNS
"It doesn't seem to come right," said Patricia, rumpling her hair with
the back of one soiled hand and staring ruefully at the lumpy,
meaningless group of two stiff figures in modeling-wax that stood
stolidly on a thick little board on top of the piano stool.
"They do look a bit queer," admitted Elinor, reluctantly. "Perhaps
when you've worked on them more----"
Patricia interrupted her hotly. "I won't waste another hour on them!"
she declared vehemently. "I've slaved and slaved all my spare time, I
missed the last of Miss Jinny's visit, and I didn't have time to hear a
word of Judy's tales about Greycroft and the village, and I haven't
taken a moment to myself this whole week! I've done with it now for
good and all. I was an idiot to think I could do anything, anyway."
"I believe if you tried something that was more simple, you'd do
better," said Elinor sympathetically. "You've taken such a
tremendously elusive sort of thing in this. Why not try something that
either Judith or I could pose for? That would help a lot, you know."
Patricia gave the stool a whirl, staring discontentedly at the
afflicting group.
"It's a sorry mess," she commented dejectedly. "I don't believe I want
to make a goose of myself again. No, I won't try, Norn. You're
awfully good to offer to pose, but I'm done with prize designs till
I've had more experience," and with a swoop she crumpled the two little
stolid figures into an indistinguishable mass, pounding them fiat with
her pink palm.
"There! That's the last of _you_!" she said vindictively. "Let's see
what you've been working on, Elinor. Ju said it was 'very
satisfactory.'"
Elinor smiled. "I only started this afternoon while you were in
class," she replied, bringing out a fair-sized canvas with a rough
charcoal drawing on it. "I'm just blocking in the outlines, as you
see; but I've made a little color study that shows you how it will go."
Patricia took the bit of canvas board, and held it at arm's length,
squinting at it with eyes that gradually brightened.
"Why, it's dandy, Elinor Kendall!" she cried. "It'll be perfectly
lovely if you can put it through even as well as you've managed it
here. Judy was drawing it mild!"
Judith, who was studying under the lamp at the center table with her
fingers screwed into her ears and her mouth twisted intently in pursuit
of knowledge, came abruptly back to life.
"Well, I didn't want you to expect too much," she said, with a gentle
impatience. "If I'd praised it too much, you'd have been disappointed
with the thing itself."
"Right-o, Miss Judith," laughed Patricia, flinging an arm about the
young sage. "My word, but you're a crafty young one! I'd have raved
about it till even Michael Angelo or Raphael couldn't have satisfied
the expectations of the beholder. How do you come by so much wisdom,
Miss Minerva?"
Judith tossed her mane. "Don't call names," she responded, hiding the
gratified smile that lurked in the corners of her mouth. "You'd think
of things, too, if you didn't talk _quite_ so much, Miss Pat. It's
dreadfully hard to talk and think at the same time."
"Is it?" cried Patricia, delighted as usual with Judith's maxims.
"Hear that now, will you, Norn? Ju's going to reform me. I hope I'll
be a satisfactory subject, Judy darling. 'Thinking Taught While You
Wait.' It's a great idea and it may lead to a new school of mental
science. Ju would look fine in cap and gown as president of the
college----"
Patricia broke off laughing at Judith's absolutely unconscious face,
as, with fingers once again screwed into her ears and mouth twisted
intently, she immersed herself in the dignified oblivion of study.
Patricia looked at her with laughing eyes that gradually grew sober.
"I've got it!" she said, eagerly turning to Elinor. "I've got the idea
for the sort of thing you meant. I'll do Judy just as she is--you'll
pose, won't you, Ju? I won't be too hard on you."
"Don't I always study like this?" replied Judith without looking up.
"Go ahead as long as you like--only don't talk. I want to study."
"Good girl, Judith!" cried Patricia, pulling the stool with its burden
nearer to the light. "I'll plunge in right away and get it blocked in
tonight. Do you know where I put that other package of modeling-wax,
Elinor?"
She set to work with a will, humming to herself as she worked, the
failure of her more ambitious undertaking forgotten in the joy of
renewed hope, and her intimate knowledge of Judith's face and figure
helping unconsciously to better work than she could have done in the
schools.
When nine o'clock rang from the church tower across the park she laid
down her tools with an air of great content.
"I believe it's going to go," she announced to the absorbed pair of
workers before her. "Wake up, Norn, and give me a criticism. Ju has
to go to bed and can't hold the pose much longer anyway."
"Pooh, I'm not a bit tired," protested Judith. "I sit this way every
night for _hours_."
Elinor laid down her brushes and turned in her chair. Her face lighted
as she saw the rough, vigorous outlines of Patricia's latest effort.
"That's the real thing, Miss Pat!" she said enthusiastically. "If you
can keep it up like that, you won't have to be ashamed of it, I can
tell you!"
She came and stood behind Patricia, her hands on her shoulders, eager
and interested.
"That shoulder is a little too high, and the head needs more fullness
at the top--Ju has lots of hair--but it's going along splendidly,
_splendidly_! Don't touch it again till Judith poses tomorrow. You
want to keep close to life and not make up anything."
Patricia, meek in experience of past failure, covered her work and put
it safely away.
"I'll go on with it when I'm rested and Judy is fresh," she said
contentedly. "If it goes on as rapidly as it has tonight, it will be
ready to turn in at the end of the week. We have until Saturday night
to put in our stuff, you know. You have to get yours in by noon, don't
you?"
Elinor nodded. "But I shan't have any trouble finishing in time, I'm
sure," she said with bright confidence. "I feel as though it were
almost going to do itself."
The spare hours of the rest of that week were devoted to the prize
designs, and both progressed so happily that their authors were filled
with a greater measure of content as the days sped.
"I'm going to take mine in to the Academy to work on this afternoon
while I wait for the night life," said Elinor on Thursday as they were
leaving the breakfast room. "I want to see how it looks among the big
casts and life studies. I'm afraid it won't show up very well among
the real things, but it may help me to see its faults and remedy them
while I still have time."
Patricia gazed approvingly at the dim, shadowy study of graceful
figures grouped in attentive attitudes about a reader in a landscape of
suggested loveliness that spoke to any observer with delicate symbolism.
"It's the best ever," she declared. "I'll 'wagger,' as Hannah Ann
says, that you lift the medal."
Elinor gave a gently contemptuous sniff as she stowed it away in its
corner. "No doubt--with all those experienced students competing!
Some of them have been there ten years, Miss Pat. I simply haven't the
ghost of a show, and you know it."
Patricia was silenced, though unconvinced. "Don't you let any of those
hyenas see it, all the same," she cautioned. "I know them better than
you do. They'd rush another version in before yours, and then where
would you be?"
"I don't believe anyone would be so low minded!" cried Elinor, shocked
and reproachful. "How can you say such things, Miss Pat?"
"Take my advice, my dear," grinned Patricia. "You're too good to see
through some of those fakes, and this is one instance when my eyes are
clearer than yours. It isn't often I can give you points, so do be
grateful. Don't let those long-haired boys get a glimpse of it, or
it's all up with you."
Elinor promised, smiling at Patricia's vehemence, and went off with her
canvas, securely wrapped against curious eyes, held firmly in one
gray-gloved hand.
Patricia looked after her with loving pride. "How pretty she is, and
how clever," she thought tenderly. "And the best part of it is that
she doesn't know what an adorable dear she is. I hope she gets an
honorable mention, even if she can't hit the prize. She deserves a lot
of good times, after all those lean years when she took such good care
of us."
When Patricia came home from the library at half-past five, she was
surprised to find Elinor stretched on the couch, with a thick
comfortable drawn up to her chin, and her face gray and haggard.
"What in the world--" she began in alarm, but Elinor silenced her
questioning with a weak wave of one tired hand.
"I'm not really sick," she said, in a faint tone, as Patricia cuddled
down on the floor beside her and took the chilly hand in her warm one.
"I have one of my old headaches. I forgot to get any lunch. I had
just put the key in my locker, when everything grew black and I'd have
collapsed if Doris Leighton hadn't helped me to a chair. She gave me
some milk and got my things for me, and when I felt well enough, she
came over here with me. She's certainly the sweetest thing. She had
to miss getting her criticism, too. Mr. Benton had just gone in when I
crumpled up."
"She's a perfect angel," cried Patricia, her heart warming at the
thought of Doris' genuine sweetness of nature. "If Miss Jinny really
had known her, she'd been the last to suspect her."
"She's coming over after life class," Elinor went on, closing her eyes
wearily. "I found I'd forgotten my keys when I got home, and she's
going to bring them over for me on her way home."
"You'd better go to sleep," said Patricia, smoothing the white brow
with deft fingers. "I'll keep everything quiet, so that you can sleep
it off as you used to be able to. I hope you'll be all right in the
morning."
Elinor nodded mutely, and Patricia, pulling down the shades so that the
street light did not flicker on the pale wall, tiptoed out of the room,
to caution Judith and await the coming of Doris Leighton.
Dinner was long over, Judith's lessons done and bed-time come, when at
last Patricia hurried down to the long parlor where Doris sat in the
dim light.
She was very pale and tired looking, but as graceful and charming as
ever. She inquired after Elinor with a profuse sympathy that more than
satisfied the warm-hearted Patricia, whose compassion stirred at her
look of fatigue.
"You ought to be taking more care of yourself," she said, with concern.
"You're tired to death, and yet you come out of your way to see about
Elinor. You look dreadfully fagged."
Doris smiled wanly. She laid an impulsive hand on Patricia's arm and
opened her pretty lips, but before the words came she evidently obeyed
another differing impulse, for she underwent a subtle change, an
imperceptible hardening that was so delicately veiled by her still
gracious manner that Patricia had only a baffling sense of being gently
shut out from her real confidence.
"I've been working on my panel study," she said, with an effort at
brightness. "I don't seem to get it finished to my liking, and the
time is getting perilously short, you know."
Patricia looked her surprise. "Why, I thought you hadn't started it
yet. You said you'd rush it off at the last moment without a bit of
trouble."
"That's the way I usually do," assented Doris evenly. "But I'm going
out of town on Saturday, and I have to turn it in before I leave
tomorrow night. I'll stay home and work on it in the morning, so I
shan't see you perhaps before I go."
She said good-night absently, and Patricia, watching her hurry down
the frosty street, found herself wondering at the subtle barrier that
she could feel so keenly, while she yet tried to disbelieve.
"I wonder what she was going to say?" she thought, as she went slowly
up to Judith's room, where she was to spend the night. "It can't be my
imagination this time, for she actually did start to speak, and then
stopped." She frowned and then her face cleared. "What a stupid I
am--always getting up in the air about trifles! Doris Leighton is
tired to death, and wanted to get home. She was just as pleasant as
ever, even though she didn't have time or strength to be as sociable as
she'd liked. If she hadn't felt an interest in Elinor, she'd not
troubled to bring her keys back tonight. I hope she makes good with
her prize study, now that she's gotten an idea for it. She's a
stunning worker when she goes at it."
She tiptoed softly in to Elinor, who was sleeping quietly, and she
stood looking down at the sweep of eyelash and rounded cheek that the
low-turned light caught out from the jumbled masses of dark hair.
"Dear old Norn," she thought fondly. "You'll be at the head of the
night life, too, some day, like Doris is now, and you'll be cleverer
than any of them, for you aren't ever a bit cocked up about yourself."
Her eyes grew wide with thought. "That's the reason," she whispered
triumphantly, "that you're going to be a howling success--you've got
time to care about all the other things in life first, to think about
them and to enjoy them. And that means O-RIG-INAL-ITY. You've got
more ideas now than any of those old stagers, you adorable duck!" she
ended, so overcome by her feelings that she dropped on her knees by the
couch and pressed her warm lips on the dark hair.
Elinor merely stirred and mumbled something indistinct, much to the
contrite Patricia's relief.
"I'll never learn to be composed and considerate," she sighed as she
crept in beside the slumbering Judith. "I'm crazy for Elinor to finish
that lovely study of hers, and yet I'd wake her up just for my silly
whims. She's got to get it done tomorrow if she can. Wish I could
help her. Thank goodness, mine's done at last," and she drifted off to
sleep with a jumble of prize designs and golden dreams for the future
mingling with that recurring memory of Doris Leighton's hardening face
as she spoke of her study for the library panel.
The next afternoon when Elinor, completely restored after a day's rest,
took out her drawing-board and began to work, Patricia brought out her
own study for a final criticism before laboriously lugging it up to the
Academy.
Elinor and Judith were very enthusiastic over the intent, studious
figure that bent over its book in such lifelike fashion.
"It's that air of real hard study that makes it so good," said Elinor,
twirling the stool to catch every view of the figure. "I don't know
how you managed to get it so well."
"Well, Ju was studying hard and not merely posing," returned Patricia
seriously. "Somehow it gets into the work. There isn't anything that
tells the truth so straight as our sort of work, Norn. You simply
can't fake. Judy deserves part of the credit. And then, I liked it
so, I couldn't help getting on with it. It's so fearfully jolly to a
_producer_."
Judith gave her pale locks a toss. "Why, we're all doing it!" she
crowed. "You two in the Academy, and I at home here in my diary and my
stories! Aren't we a talented lot!"
"_Stuff!_" said Patricia disgustedly. "You and I needn't brag yet a
while, Judy. Elinor's the only one that's got a ghost of a showing.
You've a long lane to run before you can even be considered, and I'm
just common, every-day stuff like everyone else. This is just a flyer
I'm taking in the company of my betters," and she gave a whimsical
glance at Elinor with the insight that was occasionally hers in brief
glimpses. "I can't fly far, I warn you, but it's simply ripping while
I'm on the wing!"
"Judy likes to see herself go by in the mirror," smiled Elinor
leniently. "I suppose that's the literary mind."
"Literary grandmother!" exclaimed Patricia scornfully. "She's a
conceited chicken that thinks she's a nightingale because she can peep
louder than some. Wait till you've had some of your stuff printed,
Judy, before you boast. Anyone can scribble----"
"You'll hurt her feelings, Miss Pat," protested Elinor, as Judith's
dignified back disappeared into her own room and the door closed
firmly. "She doesn't mean to be boastful."
"Nonsense! I'm her only hope," returned Patricia with spirit. "She
won't amount to a row of pins if she goes on this way. Don't you worry
about her feelings. She's got sense enough to know I'm right. Come
along over to the Academy with me now. The walk will do you good, and
I'll feel more respectable with a good-looking escort while I'm lugging
this huge thing."
They met Doris Leighton coming out of the students' door, and after a
few inquiries found that she had just accomplished the same errand that
Patricia was bent on. Her study for the prize panel was safely stowed
away in the office of the curator.
"What was it like?" eagerly demanded Patricia. "It doesn't matter now,
you know, if you tell. We won't tell, and it's too late, anyway, to
make any difference."
Doris hesitated, undergoing again that subtle change that Patricia had
seen before.
"I think I'll wait till they're all in," she replied softly. "It will
be better for us all to be able to say truthfully that we had no idea
of what the others were like till after ours were in. Don't you think
so?"
"Of course it will," agreed Elinor heartily. "I'm glad you thought of
it. I'd much rather not know. Mine isn't finished yet, and I'm so new
at the work that I might be influenced."
"I thought about that," said Doris with veiled eyes on Elinor's pale
face. "I know how the same thought wave will pass through peoples'
minds when they're working together, and I feel that one should be very
careful not to influence another, particularly in a case like this."
"I'm not so sure that it makes a bit of difference," said Patricia
carelessly. "I've heard of people miles apart having the same idea at
the same time. Patents are always being duplicated, you know."
"Indeed they are!" cried Doris with singular fervor. "But the one who
gets the idea first is always the real inventor. The jury wouldn't
hesitate to decide on that, I'm positive, if anyone was so unfortunate
as to turn in a duplicate of any of the studies."
After she had said good-bye and they Were waiting at the curator's
desk, Elinor spoke musingly.
"I wonder," she said, wrinkling her brows, "if Doris Leighton was
afraid I'd garnish my panel with any of her ideas; she was so
unnaturally stirred up about it."
Patricia, with her mind wholly on her own absorbing business, gave
scant attention.
"She's rattled for fear she won't take the prize as usual," she said,
gayly. "I bet she opens her eyes when she sees yours, Norn. Hers may
be lots better done, but it simply can't be as lovely and as
_different_."
She pushed her bulky package carefully across the curator's counter,
with an eager request that it be tenderly treated, and that official
reassured her as to its entire safety by placing it at once in the
locked ante-room where the modeling competition studies were stored.
"When will the prizes be announced?" she asked breathlessly, as the
door clicked in its lock. "Shall we have to wait long?"
The curator smiled at her eagerness. "The library panel will be
announced at noon on Tuesday in the first antique room," he said. "And
the modeling class will be notified immediately before, while the class
is still in session."
Patricia shivered with excited anticipation as they closed the heavy
outer door of the Academy after them.
"_Jiminy_, I wish Tuesday were here and over!" she said fervently.
"I'm scared stiff when I think of my poor little study with all those
artists focusing their eagle eyes on it."
"It does seem ages to wait," agreed Elinor. "After I turn mine in
tomorrow morning, I'll be consumed with curiosity to see the
others--particularly Doris Leighton's."